Last week I built a haunted house. No, I did not get bored
and create a haunted house in my couch-less living room for Wilbur. I joined
the Madison Jaycees, and their largest fundraiser is the annual haunted house
they build in a park close to my house.
On Monday after work I arrived at the bare bones building in
the park to find wood, props, plastic and tools spilling out of two
semi-trailers. I found the man in charge of the haunted house and was promptly
given the job of drilling plywood onto frames to finish the walls. I completed
a few walls, helped mount them in the house and wandered through the black maze
that was already feeling a bit scary. The lights were on, the pop music was
blaring, everyone was talking and many of the walls were bare wood, but I could
feel my heart rate increase. I don’t do scary. Even though the haunted house
was far from scary, my mind was racing ahead to what it would look like, what
the characters would act like and how dark each of the hallways would
eventually be.
About a month earlier we had a meeting to discuss the
haunted house. Jordan shared diagrams, maps, photos and internet print offs to
explain exactly how people would walk through, the theme of each room, and
where each character would be stationed. As he described the military lab gone
bad, I had goosebumps. With every corner we turned in his description, I jumped
when he mentioned a person popping out, up, in or down to scare the patrons. He
chuckled at my reactions.
After the aggressive timeline for building was discussed,
the volunteer sign-up sheet was passed around the table. I quickly volunteered
to build every night after work and to sell tickets every night I could. Jordan
noticed that I was consistently adding my name to the ticket booth space and
asked me to be a ticket taker instead of seller. I asked him what that meant.
He responded, “well, you’ll be in a military outfit with a gun. You have to
take the patrons tickets, or security clearance as we are calling them.
Remember it’s a military experimentation facility gone bad, so you need to be
mean, yell at the people, scare them if you want and then eventually let them
into the house. Make it fun for them.”
I responded, “fun for them? By scaring them? That sounds
horrible! I’ll stick with selling tickets.”
Jordan laughed and the meeting was over.
Building the house continued on Tuesday and Wednesday after
work. I painted walls and thresholds black, organized frightening costumes and
props, helped to put the black roof on top of the walls and always carried a
flashlight.
By the end of the night on Wednesday, I was petrified. The
massive spider and body bags were in place, the doors were attached, and the
house that I had navigated with ease on Monday had become a black maze of terror
(for me). Let me set the scene and say that the pop music was still blasting,
people were still talking through the walls and doors, but I couldn’t get out
of my own head and stop myself from being scared.
When it came time to test the fog machine effect Jordan asked
me to lock him in the house from the back. Everyone else was in the house with
him, watching and helping to figure out the fog machines that were acting up. I
gladly obliged and stood in the lighted hallway behind the house, listening to
the chatter and relieved that I wasn’t standing next to the mutilated body on
the surgical table with them.
After about ten minutes Jordan told me I shouldn’t be alone
in the back and told me to come through and watch the fog machines do their
thing. I hesitated. The haunted house was getting too scary for me, so I took
two flashlights, slowly walked through the frightening maze of the white room,
avoiding the splatters of blood until I found my way into the room with the
rest of the crowd. Everyone laughed when I finally made it to them and then
regretted the fact that no one had scared me. Within fifteen minutes, we called
it a night and went home.
Thursday evening I backed out of helping at the haunted
house, partly because I had a date and partly because I knew it would be too scary
for me. On my date we talked about the haunted house and I described my
incredible fear of everything and anything remotely scary. He told me about his
obsession with horror movies.
Friday I returned to the park to work at the ticket booth. I
sat in a tent at the bottom of the hill collecting eight dollars from each
person and barely able to contain my desire to tell them to turn around and go
home. Hundreds of people came to the house. Lots of children came to the house.
I wanted them to stay at the bottom of the hill with me and keep them from
being frightened, but they all came back with smiles on their faces! I put my
best smile on and thanked them for the support, unable to grasp how anyone could
find a haunted house to be fun.
I ventured up the hill about halfway through the night to
grab myself a bottle of water. I walked past the line of people and scary
ticket takers to the back of the building and the hallway that had once been
lighted. I found a flashlight, took a bottle of water, found a soda for my
fellow ticket seller, returned the flashlight and left the building. I turned
left around the corner, carefully retracing my steps.
I jumped. I dropped the soda. I screamed.
It was a dad. He was wearing loafers, glasses, khakis and a
North Face jacket.
He laughed and said, “I’m not supposed to be scary.”
“I know, I know, I just scare really easily. This is why I sell the tickets and don’t
work inside.”
This weekend I am in Tulsa and obviously unable to volunteer
in Madison, and not surprisingly, I’m okay with that. The ticket booth is fun,
but I will have plenty of time to sell tickets next weekend, and that
khaki-clad man gave me enough of a fright to keep me on my toes for at least
two weeks.
